Last Updated on September 24, 2022
A high-profile pro-life author and activist was arrested after dozens of FBI agents surrounded his house in the Department of Justice’s latest SWAT raid on right-wing Americans.
Mark Houck is a father of seven children, a pro-life author, and a sidewalk counselor.
Around 7:00 AM on Friday, according to Houck’s wife Ryan-Marie, who homeschools the children, as many as 30 FBI agents surrounded their home with rifles ready to shoot and “started pounding on the door and yelling for us to open it.”
Ryan-Marie said her husband attempted unsuccessfully to de-escalate the threatening agents, saying, “‘please, I’m going to open the door, but, please, my children are in the home. I have seven babies in the house.’ But they just kept pounding and screaming.”
When Mark opened the door, “the kids were all just screaming. It was all just very scary and traumatic.”
After the FBI agents snatched up Mark “the kids were all screaming that he was their best friend, the [FBI agents on her porch] kind of softened a bit. I think they realized what was happening,” Ryan-Marie told Lifesite News.
Mark was arrested on a warrant which claimed he violated the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act (FACE Act). The warrant claims Mark attacked a patient escort.
Lifesite News reported:
Ryan-Marie stated this charge comes from an incident that had already been thrown out of the District Court in Philadelphia but was somehow picked up by Merrick Garland’s Department of Justice.
On several occasions when Mark went to sidewalk counsel last year, he took his eldest son, who was only 12 at the time, she explained. For “weeks and weeks,” a “pro-abortion protester” would speak to the boy saying “crude … inappropriate and disgusting things,” such as “you’re dad’s a fag,” and other statements that were too vulgar for her to convey.
Repeatedly, Mark would tell this pro-abortion man that he did not have permission to speak to his son and please refrain from doing so. And “he kept doing it and kind of came into [the son’s] personal space” obscenely ridiculing his father. At this point, “Mark shoved him away from his child, and the guy fell back.”
“He didn’t have any injuries or anything, but he tried to sue Mark,” and the case was thrown out of court in the early summer.
Chris Stefanick, a prominent Catholic speaker, took to Twitter to offer support for Houck.
“A friend of mine’s bro-in-law, Marc Houck, runs a men ministry and prays & counsels women outside an abortion clinic in Philly. He’s not a yelling/chain yourself to the entrance doors type. He’s saved lives & supported children he’s saved. He’s the real deal,” Stefanick began.
“Today a SWAT team broke down his door and put a gun in his face in front of his wife and kids for “restricting access” to an abortion clinic. Which he never did. Total, blatant, false charge against a man who poses no threat to justify a SWAT team,” Stefanick continued.
(2) Today a SWAT team broke down his door and put a gun in his face in front of his wife and kids for “restricting access” to an abortion clinic. Which he never did. Total, blatant, false charge against a man who poses no threat to justify a SWAT team.
— Chris Stefanick (@ChrisStefanick) September 23, 2022
“A few hours later they let him out of jail because they had NOTHING on him….though his small children will, no doubt, carry the traumatic event for years. Why send SWAT to someone you have no reason to even hold?… This is government sponsored bullying & intimidation,” he added.
Stay tuned to National File for any updates.
